Paul Armentano, writing for NORML:
A representative at the US Centers for Disease Control for the first time today identified vitamin E acetate as a “very strong culprit of concern” in EVALI (e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury). Their announcement comes after health officials found the oil in the lungs of 29 patients sickened following their use of portable e-liquid vaporizers.
Writing in the agency’s journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, investigators concluded, “Based on these data from 29 patients, it appears that vitamin E acetate is associated with EVALI.”
The first mention of vitamin E acetate as a potential cause of these vaping health issues on Think Wilder was in the This Week in Psychoactives blog post from September 6. The vaping experts I follow on Twitter have been correctly pointing to this contaminant since then, but many official sources (media and government) tried to blame e-cigarettes. One of the worst offenders has been the CDC, which stubbornly pointed its finger at e-cigarettes rather than the actual source of the problem—illicit THC vape cartridges. It’s a crying shame it took more than two months for the folks over there to start spreading accurate information about this.